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'My daughter had actual clots sliding out of her mouth and they gave me a cup and said, "Here, catch them with the cup so we can measure them,"' Winkfield told ABC 7.

Apprehensive: Jahi McMath was nervous about undergoing surgery but her mother assured her she'd be fine

Chatman, herself a surgical nurse, said nursing staff did not react until she began screaming for help.

Beloved: Jahi McMath, pictured here with her mother Nailah Winkfield, was undergoing the surgery to help with her sleep apnea

'I was the last one to see Jahi,' said
Chatman. 'I said, "Somebody help my baby please!" And they came in and
starting working on her. The next thing I know, the doctor said, "Oh no,
she doesn't have a heart rate anymore."'

'There was a lack of urgency,' Jahi McMath's uncle Omari Sealey said. 'It's shock, it's disbelief. You never think something like this will happen to you.'

Jahi McMath went into cardiac arrest and was resuscitated.

She spent Tuesday on a ventilator, but by 2am Wednesday doctors said she had swelling in her brain, and Thursday, she was declared legally brain-dead, according to the Oakland Tribune.

McMath is on life support as her family tries to come to terms with what has happened.

They
say the situation is made even worse by the hospital staff trying to
rush them to remove McMath from life support and regain use of her
hospital bed.

'They
just have a social worker follow me around all day long asking me "Do
you have any other family that needs to see her?" like trying to put a
rush on it,' Winkfield told ABC 7, breaking down.

Investigation: An Oakland Children's Hospital spokesperson has said the hospital will investigate what happened after Jahi McMath's surgery

Spokesperson for Oakland Children's Hospital said in a statement: 'We're very sad about this outcome, about what's happened to her, but at this point I have no information on the details of the surgery. We will certainly investigate what happened. In any surgery there are risks and there can be unexpected, unanticipated complications.'

The family has no plans to remove Jahi McMath from life support and Chatman told the Oakland Tribune that as long as her heart is beating, they will keep her in the hospital, even if it means spending Christmas in there.

'As long as she has a pulse, we want her on life support,' Sealey said. 'We want her to come home for Christmas. We want to give her presents. We want a chance for a Christmas miracle.'